Now that we know who the series came from, we should
examine where it came from. Professionals make a
living debating whether our habits and creations are completely
genetic (phonology), or based on our surroundings (ontology). I
for one, as a few do, say it's both. So to really and truly
understand Akira Toriyama (in as much as we can through the power
of this book) we have to unearth a little information about the
place he grew up, and the country he called home. Once we
know this, the rest of the Dragon Ball world might just make
a little more sense.

Among the fallout of the dropping of two
nuclear weapons on Japanese cities to force a quick Japanese
military surrender were the elements—artistic, not radioactive—that
would lead to the creation of Dragon Ball. The occupation
years of 1945 through 1952 gave way to a Japanese
people that were in a sort of meditation on their identity, the
war, the nuclear bombs dropped on them, the technological and cultural
future, and new world issues such as environmental impact. It
was a frothy time of questioning, debate, the wedding of corporations
and government ministries, and rebel art that caught the spirit
of rebellion of many Japanese against the old pre-war ways. The
cult movie classic Godzilla—first created in the early
1950’s—would come out of this collective brooding.

To understand with insight, both historically and psychologically,
the Dragon Ball phenomenon, a brief exploration of its
home country is helpful. The series creator, Akira
Toriyama, is a Japanese artist born just as Japan
was emerging out of the US armed forces occupation and reconstruction
led by General Douglas MacArthur.

In short, this section is about Japan. But
just saying that might mean nothing to you if you're
not even familiar with Japan as a nation or where the
world has agreed it should be placed on the map. I presume
that most readers are familiar
with such things, but for fun, here's a quick refresher:

Just as Dragon Ball would feature story lines
set in super-extraordinary landscapes, Japan itself
is an extraordinary land. Like Hawaii, it is an island mass formed
from the geology of ocean-floor volcanoes. Some of these are
still active, a sort of constant reminder of geological dragons.
And, Japan is crisscrossed by earthquake faults—leading
to occasional devastating earthquakes—and to a subconscious
fear/fascination with catastrophic destruction. These psyche
and environmental themes again crop up in Dragon Ball story
unfoldments. Unlike Hawaii, known for its subtropical lushness,
Japan is much further north, on the western side of the Pacific
Ocean, tucked in near Korea and China, and receiving snow in winter
and muggy, hot summers just like New York.

Japan is an island country in East Asia,
located in the Pacific Ocean. Japan is referred to by its
native people as Nihon,
or Nippon— literally meaning “Sun's Origin.” Its
closest neighbors include North and South Korea to the west, China
and Russia to the northwest, and Vietnam lies to the southwest. It's Japan’s capital is Tokyo, which iscomprising one
of the nations 47 prefectures. Tokyo is a metropolis
of twelve million people and is the most expensive real estate
on the planet. and it has a national history dating back
thousands of years.

Japan is a very literate country, with a wide-ranging publishing
business that literally tidal waves Japan each year with newspapers,
magazines, books and the comic books known as manga.

See? Fun stuff. And now
we all know what I am referring to when I say “Japan”.

But where do we even begin talking about
Japan? It has such
a long and arguably uninterrupted national history that it's difficult
to pick a starting point. But for this particular section
I believe it makes the most sense to start around the time
our author, Toriyama-San, was born.

In the late 1940's and 50's, the post World
War II era, for Japan, was one of regrowth. The drop of the Atom and Hydrogen bombs
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had forced the nation to surrender, and
for His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor Hirohito to renounce his
divinity to the nation. Furthermore, he admit that for the
survival of the country it must bow before the Americans. This
involved an acceptance of American terms and a full borne occupation
of the Islands under Japanese control by American forces. This
period was rife with change.

Japan has a history stretching back many
thousands of years (some scholars say 13,000 years),
with a rich exchange of culture, ideas and trade with China,
and, as well, a deep rivalry and antipathy with China that would
culminate in the Japanese occupation of China from 1937 to the
end of WWII. This bridge—built and broken—with
China would bring religion, metaphysics, myths, legends,
practices into Japan that directly contributed to
the genesis of Dragon
Ball. And, as China exported martial arts—through the
Shaw Brothers of Hong Kong, a perfect storm of conditions
was created for the enormous popularity of Dragon Ball. The tao (a
Chinese word meaning way or path) of Dragon Ball is as much Chinese
as Japanese.

The religions of Japan include its ancient root religion, Shintoism,
and the import from China, Buddhism, which in turn China imported
from India. There are networks of spiritual and metaphysical thought
and practice that transmitted to Japan from China and India along
the fabled Silk Road. All these streams would empty into the revolutionary
river of thought creating the new art form of Japanese comics.

When the American military occupied
Japan in 1945, the Chinese/Japanese bridge was joined with
a very contemporary bridge to the west. of the effects that the occupation
had There was an infusion of American and to a lesser degree
British culture into Japanese society. And this infusion
went right into the bloodstream of the rebellious
Japanese art community.Perhaps taken with a bit of reluctance,
but accepted nevertheless.A concrete example:Of
note were The British comic books known as “Punch” comics,
which were typically used as satirical works reflecting the edgy perspectives
of their English authors about theon current politicians
and political times. The Japanese had their own version
of “Punch” as well, used heavily during the WWII
for propaganda purposes. During the occupation these Japanese “Punches” had
a way of suggesting the Japanese look at what was brought
with the Americans the Americans were introducing. This style
of comic eventually caught on with the Japanese. They
began to adopt it and make it their own, much as the Japanese
did for many other areas of manufacturing, economics and culture
in those formative occupation and post-occupation years. This
isn't to say that comics in Japan were strictly 'borrowed'
from the British. Far from it, as the Japanese had a long history
of refined art that stretched back hundreds of years,
including an entire field devoted to comic-like strips.

But it wasn't until 1947, when Osamu Tezuka,
who had formerly been training to become a doctor in an attempt
to avoid transcription (what is this?), made a remarkably incisive
decision to forgo a medical career and become a mangaka (what
is this?) Much
as in America, deciding to give up a medical career for one of
comic book artist had a kind of beatnik social stigma attached
to it that was anything but promoted. But Tezuka simply
sped over this social road bumpmoved beyond this difficulty and developed his first major book— titled New Treasure
Island. It is widely recognized as the world's first graphic
novel (a novel composed more of pictures than words). It
was 200 pages in length, which was astounding in its own
right at the time. The images inside were even more seminally innovate
and charming captivating as they singularly fused traditional
Japanese artistic style with that of Western comics and animation,
such assimilar to that found in Disney movies and shorts,
and the Punch comics. The New Treasure Island captivated
in a remarkably psychological way the reading Japanese public—at
that time looking for new meaning and purpose in their lives. Unfortunately
due to the length (and subject) of this book we will avoid
going into an expose on Tezuka. Tezuka’s first work,
and all his works to follow (including those who were inspired
by him), laid the ground work for the next six decades of
manga to come.

We will also avoid going into too much depth
on the history of manga itself, and it's growth as
an art form, as this could be an entire book all it's own. Yet it is
safe (I feel) to say that Since the introduction of manga after
World War II to the Japanese culture, Japan has become a somewhat
comic-driven society. Manga
Zasshi, or simply manga, is a word denoting the breadth of all the
available comics produced in Japan. They typically fall into
four categories: Youth comics (seinen manga), boys'
comics (shonen manga), girls' comics (shojo manga),
and adult comics (seijin manga). Each is designed
and packaged to appeal to a certain demographic. There are
other sub groups, and certainly different genres, and each
of these varieties is published weekly, biweekly, and or monthly. This
results in a proverbial deluge of comic books which are published
in Japan each year, accounting for around 40% of all published
works. And the Japanese continue to read them with enormous
gusto, especially young boys and girls.

Traditionally, boys' and girls' comic books
are released in combination paper back books: one issue of a
certain comic is presented next to a series of others, around
10-15 serialized comics per book, and about 200-400 pages total. The breadth and size of the
books varies based on the style, but their overly large status
combined with their typical release on less than high quality paper
had coined the term “Phone Books,” a fitting description
for these behemoths. These books usually don't contain much
color, though the pages themselves will occasionally be colored
to denote special sections or to denote the start of each new individual
manga. Once a manga has appeared in a combination journal
enough times it is typically bound into its own volume. A
collection of these volumes can stand on its own as a representation
of the series.

It is the goal of many mangaka to have their
creations serialized in this bound volume format because this
is where the majority of readers tend to get their dosage. The amount of readers
that purchase these journals is astronomical, and to be featured
in one is to have near instant recognition. Of course not
all of the mangas do well, but in many ways it is similar to having
a television show or movie air during the prime time slots. The
more people that could witness it, the better, at least
financially, for those who created it.

As of 1994 it was estimated that two-thirds
of all boys between the ages of 5 and 18 read these magazines
regularly, and one-sixth of all girls were regular readers of
their respective comics. 2 Concerning
the boys; With a population of boys of that age range in Japan
of 16.5 million (Check the facts on this) it becomes clear
that the majority of Japanese boys are comic readers. This
phenomenon is similar to young comic book readers in America, but
it is even more popular (and accepted) in Japan. The stigma
that accompanies adult comic book readers who are adults in the
U.S. is absent from Japan, and this enables readers of all ages
to openly enjoy this art form. The number of readers is even
higher now (in 2006), and it quite possibly one of the factors
behind the high rate of literacy Japan compared to that of
othersother
countries.

The incredibly successful and highly publicized
comics (often in tandem with their own serialized television
show) are able to last 10 or more years in one of the combination
books, and the combined circulation of these comics is around
10 million per week. But
what about the other forms of entertainment that sprung up
in the world at this time, what about the movies, and Television?

With the invention and rise of television
came the fall of the movie theater. The development of the television in Japan
was one built on big businesses that were founded shortly before
or during World War II and grew as a result, or created as a result,
of new technology brought over during the occupation. In
1958 the attendance at movie theaters was at an all time
high of 1.1 billion, but due to the rise in production of affordable
televisions, in 1968 that number had fallen to 300 million, and
around half of all movie theaters in the country were shut down
by the end of the decade.1 Television,
as we'll soon see, played a monumental role in shaping Japanese
society.

Why do people read manga exactly? There
are various reasons, and not all of them can be analyzed to the
fullest extentfully,
especially considering the variety of genres and the readers
who read them. But an easy, and most probably correct answer,
would be the same one that applies to all forms of entertainment.
(rewrite this, Derek) It's entertaining! Manga allows people
to escape their daily 'real' life and enter a world that's funny,
filled with emotional drama, action, suspense, and excitement. And
when you know that every week or so you're going to have another
helping waiting for you on the shelf, you start to follow along
with the cast and plot. You start to imagine what they're going
to do in the future. This is the stuff of dreams for young
children, and for older readers alike. One genre in particular,
that of the 'Salary Man', is aimed directly at Japanese businessmen
who typically work extremely long hours and have very little time
to relax. The manga pokes fun at this situation much like
the American Dilbert comics, and have been widely supported
by its fans. The mangaka were speaking the language of the
masses, and scratching them right where they itch.

The rise in popularity of manga as a whole,
and the advent of a new medium for entertainment and artistic
expression (TV) spawned a whole new class of art—anime. Or, in typical translation,
Japanese animation, which is occasionally (though often begrudgingly
by its hardcore fans) referred to as Japanimation. Running
on the coattails of the With new household luxury and free time
in Japan came TV shows, which focused on raw action and suspense,
that were able to draw out the plot for several episodes, often
taking weeks, months, and years to complete. Shows which
showcased showcased the life of 'Yakuza' (Japanese mafia)
agents in the a grimy underworld became especially popular, as
were super hero shows like Ultra Man. But especially
relative to this book, programs such as the previously mentioned
(and legendary) Astro Boy. Astro Boy was one of the first
wildly successful Anime to hit the airwaves, and, being based on
a manga, paved the way for future mangaka artists and anime titles
to come. It just so happens that By the mid 1980's anime
had become a well accepted form of entertainment, and was now 'mainstream'. Anime
was not quite as large as manga, but television, therefore,
had become a perfect setting for a show like Dragon Ball.

Dragon Ball and other creations
of the period—such
as Gundam and Robotech—became increasingly
in demand demanded, and there was an extreme amount of growth in
the industry. That is until the 1990's when the Japanese
economic bubble burst, and a depression began resulting in a depression.
During the mid 1980's when Dragon Ball was created and introduced
the country and people were flourishing. Television in combination
with the VCR were a match made in heavenperfect match for
fans of anime, and this was a great aid in Dragon Balls corner. It
also helped promote Toriyama, the creator of Dragon Ball,
into super stardom.

Since the early 1990's there have been so
many successful anime that it's difficult to even summarize what
has occurred in the last 15 years to the Japanese scene. A
few (among many) of the noteworthy titles include Macross Plus, Cowboy
Bebop, Pokemon, Sailor Moon, Moe' (accent
on the e), and of course Neon Genesis Evangelion. Evangelion
is of special note because in 1995 it was one of the first
to make a direct effort at reflecting the anime industry itself inside the
anime that was being watched. In addition to being extremely
violent and controversial, it also combined intensely psychological
and religious themes. which leftThis created an intentional confusion/conflict and
a desire to make sense ofresolve that confusion in its
viewers. It helpedThis psyce-challenging approach marked
the age of maturity in mainstream anime. Evangelion is a show who's which stylings have been mimicked by others, such as Serial
Experiments Lain, and RahXephon.

Of course at this point in history Japan
was no longer a country secluded to its Island geography,
and was linked to every other part of the world in almost every
concievable way.

In fact,By this time in the mid-1990’s
the commercial and art/cultural connection between Japan and
the West, particularly America, had come full circle from the
time of the American occupation and reconstruction of Japan. Japanese
anime directors were producing large portion segments of anime
that was produced was done with an eye for what Westerners
would find appealing. Movies
such as Akira, which had not done well in Japan, had
become an international sensation, and American audiences
in particular were enamored with it. The Japanese had realized
that their creations, which a decade or two earlier
had been relatively ignored by big business in the West, were
now becoming the thing
to watch, and Japanese culture as a whole was coming along with
it.